His bill was ready. McGarvey crossed the lobby with his overnight bag in hand, stopped at the desk, and took out his wallet. The bill was for a lot more than it should have been, and the clerk refused to look up at him. McGarvey paid it without comment. There was a lot of activity in the hotel this morning. A lot more than there had been yesterday, or even last night. There were, however, very few foreigners around. A lot of military officers had come in, but no one paid him the slightest attention. He was a nonperson. The pile of newspapers at the end of the counter was gone. Across the lobby a group of civilians were gathered around a television set. They seemed very nervous and tense. He picked up his bag.
Out on Avenida Juárez he got a taxi immediately, though the driver didn't seem very happy that his fare was a
norteamericano
. Traffic was light for this time of day. More banners had been strung up, and at some of the intersections they passed crews putting up even more. “Libertad!” “HeroÃsmo!” “Reforma!” The city was taking a holiday. Most of the shops were closed, big placards in their windows. McGarvey could only guess at some of the words and slogans, but the overall meaning was clear. A big
break was coming between Mexico and the U.S., and the Soviet Union was expecting to pick up the pieces. It was frightening everyone silly.
A military roadblock was set up on the entrance ramp to the international terminal at the airport. Traffic was backed up several hundred yards in front of the barricades. Everyone was being stopped and their papers scrutinized. Only a few cars were being allowed through; others were being turned back and still others were being shunted off the road onto a large grassy field. A shuttle bus seemed to be going back and forth between the barricade and the terminal about a mile away. McGarvey paid the cabbie and walked up to the soldiers. He held out his U.S. passport.
“My plane leaves at 1:25,” he said.
A young lieutenant with a pockmarked face took his passport and closely compared the photograph with McGarvey's face. “Your ticket,” he demanded.
“I have only reservations.”
“Impossible,” the lieutenant snapped hostilely. He handed McGarvey's passport back. “The airplane is full. All the airplanes are full.” He rested his hand on his holstered gun.
McGarvey put down his bag, pulled a hundred-dollar bill out of his pocket, and stuffed it in his passport. The lieutenant watched him through pig eyes. His lips were wet with spittle.
“It is important that I leave on that airplane,” McGarvey said, handing his passport back to the officer. “You will see that my passport is in order.”
The lieutenant glanced over at the captain, whose back was turned to them at that moment. He slipped the bill into his pocket. “I could have you shot, senor,” he said, a slight smile baring his teeth.
McGarvey said nothing.
The officer handed his passport back. “You will
have to hurry to catch your airplane. The shuttle will take you.”
“Thank you.”
“Don't return to Mexico,” the lieutenant said, and he swaggered off.
McGarvey picked up his bag and started around the barricade. The shuttle was returning from the terminal. Half a dozen other people were nervously waiting for it to arrive. Several soldiers, their automatic rifles slung over their shoulders, were watching them. A military helicopter swooped overhead from beyond one of the big maintenance hangars and headed toward the city.
It was late now, nearly one o'clock. There was a distinct possibility, he thought, that his reservations had been canceled. A lot of people, it seemed, wanted to get out of Mexico at this moment.
“Alto!”
someone behind McGarvey shouted.
He kept walking. The soldiers looked around. One of them unslung his rifle, though he seemed uncertain.
“
Alto!”
the man shouted again.
This time McGarvey stopped and turned back as the burly captain, brandishing a pistol, raced up from the other side of the barrier. He looked angry; his face was red as he squinted into the harsh sun. His khaki uniform was wet with sweat. The lieutenant was nowhere in sight.
“Your papers! Your papers!” the captain shouted.
McGarvey smiled reassuringly. He calmly handed over his passport. The other people waiting for the shuttle bus studiously avoided looking over. “Your lieutenant already checked my passport.”
“Well now I'm checking it, too.” The captain flipped through the passport. “What is your destination?”
“Washington.”
“Your tickets. Let me see your tickets.”
“My tickets are in the terminal.”
“You do not have tickets? You cannot go through. Impossible.”
McGarvey stepped forward a little. The captain's hand tightened on his pistol. “This has already been taken care of. What are you doing to me?”
“What are you saying?”
“The five thousand dollars. I gave it to your lieutenant. Didn't you get your share? Christ, talk to him, but I've got to be on that plane.”
The captain grinned. “Five thousand dollars. What do you take me for, that I would fall for a little trick like this? ⦔
“Bullshit,” McGarvey swore, raising his voice. “You keep the goddamned passport. Just take me to your colonel. Right now. We'll see what he's got to say. Maybe he'll want a piece of the action!”
The captain was suddenly alarmed. McGarvey made a move to step around him and go back to the barricade, but the captain handed back his passport.
“I don't want any trouble here, señor. You have tickets at the terminal, then you shall go.”
For just a second McGarvey refused his passport, and the captain practically pressed it on him.
“Leave now. Your bus is waiting. Just go, señor, andâ”
“I know,” McGarvey said, pocketing his passport. “Don't return to Mexico.”
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There were no problems with his tickets; McGarvey picked them up at the airline counter and boarded his plane immediately. They were delayed taking off for nearly an hour, but once they were airborne the pilot told them that most of the lost time would be made up in the air. No one really
cared. Everyone was simply glad to be out of Mexico.
McGarvey ordered a drink, and when it came he sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. He tried to think about his sister, about Kathleen, and with guilt about poor Evita behind him in Mexico City. Each time his thoughts returned, unbidden, to Marta waiting in Lausanne. She had been the strong one, but he had not recognized it, and now he was sorry.
Tonight Evita would telephone her ex-husband at his home in Georgetown. Now that he had set his plan into motion, he wasn't so sure that it would work. She was to say that she had come to Mexico City at McGarvey's orders, but that she wanted it to be like it was in the old days. It was too dangerous now for them in the States. Especially now with Soviet missiles along the southern border. If need be Basulto would be there to support her story. He knew everything from the old days. He knew about Harris and about the other one Yarnell was working with in the CIA. That was the key finally. Yarnell might have been the superstar within the agency at one time, but he was on the outside now. He spoke with presidents and was friends with Donald Powers, but the real harm was being done by whoever was inside. Someone Baranov was grooming as early as the late fifties to take over for Yarnell someday. Surely Baranov had seen how brightly Yarnell's flame burned in those days. Certainly he knew that it could not last, that Yarnell was bound to burn outâmore likely sooner than later. Someone had been waiting in the wings even then. Someone young. Someone who twenty or twenty-five years later would take up where Yarnell had left off. A steadier hand perhaps. Someone from the East Coast. Old family? Money? The right schools?
On the other hand, Yarnell could very well
ignore her. Perhaps he had heard this sort of thing before. He wasn't a stupid man. He or someone else had marked McGarvey's trail the entire way.
Or he could run to his contact within the CIA and warn him. It is time to get out. Time to cut and run. Baranov is calling.
The plane touched down at Washington's National Airport, across the Potomac River from Boiling Air Force Base, a few minutes before ten.
In the airport McGarvey was cleared through customs with no delays. Crossing the busy terminal toward the waiting cabs, he got the feeling he was being followed. When he turned, John Trotter was coming his way, a grim, determined look on his face, his eyes large and moist behind his thick glasses.
“It's gone too far,” Trotter said. “The team is gone. We'll dismantle the equipment tomorrow. But as of this moment, you're done.”
It was about what he thought might happen, so he wasn't surprised, merely a little disappointed in his old friend, who had gotten in over his head after all. Trotter was a cop, not a politician, but he'd known that all along.
“Then you and I will finish it,” he said.
“No, Kirk, it's truly over. And that is by a direct order from the president.”
“Yarnell has gotten to him,” McGarvey said.
Trotter looked away, as if by not facing his old friend he would not have to face up to his own troubles. “Apparently.”
“Then he's won.”
“It's not for me to decide.”
“You'd already decided when you came to me in Lausanne.”
“That was a hundred years ago.”
McGarvey looked at his watch. “And now we're down to the last forty-five minutes.”
“What do you mean by that?” Trotter said, alarmed. “Exactly what is it you're talking about?”
“Come on,” McGarvey said. “We can talk on the way into town.”
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Trotter's car was parked across from the departing-passenger ramp. A lot of people had come up from Mexico City on the same flight, and the area was crowded. McGarvey watched for surveillance, a face, an attitude, or a posture out of the ordinary. Mexico was Baranov's for the moment; it wasn't impossible that he would know McGarvey had gotten out. But there was no one as far as he could tell. He tossed his bag in the back seat and they headed north up the George Washington Parkway, past the Marriott Twin Bridges Hotel, the Pentagon in the distance across the Boundary Channel and Lagoon.
“I can get you some money, Kirk,” Trotter said. “Not much, but something. For what you've done already.”
“Later.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“We've still got work to do.”
“No, goddamnit. It's over. I've already told you. Day has told you. Am I going to have to arrest you?”
“It's too late, John.”
“I don't give a damn about Basulto, if that's what you're talking about. The little bastard can rot in hell for all anyone cares.”
“Yarnell's ex-wife is down there, too. They're going to telephone Yarnell tonight at eleven our time. Less than an hour from now.”
Trotter glanced over. “You'll just have to stop her. Tell her the deal is off.”
“I'm not going to quit.”
“It's because of Janos, isn't it,” Trotter said gently. “We can't even prove that Yarnell or his
people did it. Someone else could have been responsible. Use your head, Kirk.”
“He's working with someone in the CIA, John. Someone we don't know about. Someone who Baranov turned in the late fifties. Now he's active.”
“I don't believe it.”
“You'd better. It's not going to stop just because we stop. Mexico is just the tip of the iceberg. Baranov has been planning this entire business for a lot of years, and he'll keep going until someone stops him. Everything he's worked for is finally coming to a head. If he wins he'll make even more points at home. The Kremlin is already in love with him. Think what his position will be if he hands them Mexico on a silver platter. Is that the sort of man you want running the Soviet Union? And he'll get it if he wins here.”
They were approaching the Arlington Bridge, which would take them across the river. Trotter started to pull toward the off ramp. “What hotel are you staying at?”
“The safe house, John.”
“No.”
“I want to listen to that telephone conversation.”
Trotter shook his head, but he didn't take the ramp.
“It's all I'm asking.”
“And then what?” Trotter asked.
“See what he does. See how he reacts.”
“What do you think he'll do? What do you want him to do, Kirk? Go to the president? Is he your inside man?”
“I'm hoping he'll call his contact. Warn him.”